Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out Wednesday morning.

Simple, no?

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members on the oldest and most established blogging group in the 'sphere ...and grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety that comes with it. And how good is that, eh?

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

One of the things that bothers me most in our modern political discourse is the gratuitous use of the term 'traitor'.

According to our Constitution treason is strictly defined as aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime. 'Wartime' clearly implies a declared war. That's why Tokyo Rose rotted in prison after WWII, while Jane Fonda and John Kerry did not for their activities during the Vietnam era, which included meeting with the North Vietnamese in Paris during the war to plot political strategy to use at home to hamper the U.S. war effort.

Bradley Manning might be a despicable, disloyal little worm, but he is legally no traitor, which is exactly what the military judge, Col. Denise Lind, ruled in his trial over at Fort Meade.

However, he's by no means off the hook.

He was found guilty of a number of other charges including five espionage counts, five theft charges, a computer fraud charge and other military infractions that carry a potential sentence of over 100 years.

The sentencing phase of his trial begins tomorrow. I hope this creep gets the book thrown at him.

The RINO cohort of the Republican Party along with a number of pundits are doing their very best to stave off what would be an extremely popular, common sense and no-lose proposition- the defunding of ObamaCare.

There's every reason to do it and no reason not to.

What we're talking about is attaching a rider or an amendment to one of those must pass budget bills, like spending or the debt limit to prohibiting any funds from being spent to implement or enforce ObamaCare, takes any funds appropriated but not spent and puts them back in the treasury and shuts off all government subsidies for the new medical exchanges and the new Medicaid spending that are now automatically funded through ObamaCare.

It's certainly possible to do this. In 2011, the Republican Majority House actually passed this as an amendment to the debt ceiling bill, but foolishly agreed to scrap it in negotiations with President Obama.

Here's why it's important. In 2014, the main entitlements from ObamaCare kick in, with an estimated $48 billion to be spent on funding the ObamaCare subsidies, the new exchanges and the vast Medicaid expansion.

Another thing that happens is that Americans will all be required to buy healthcare, or face penalties administered by the IRS. President Obama has already requested over $400 million from congress to fund the vast new army of bureaucrats he wants to hire to implement this monstrosity. Not only that, but the vast new laws and regulations to be enforced will increase the average American's premium by over $2000, according to the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office.

You take away the funds to implement ObamaCare and it collapses.And in less you defund it, you can't repeal it.

There are a lot of reasons why it's important to do this now rather than later.

ObamaCare is a financial dead weight hanging around the neck of the American people. The further it is allowed to progress, the more money will be wasted and the harder it will be to undo the damage after January 1, 2014.

The sooner its defunded, the fewer the full time jobs that will be converted into part time employment to skate under the 50 full time employees threshold and the fewer company provided health plans that will be junked.

This kind of damage will take a long time to correct even if the bill is eventually repealed, one reason to utterly reject the nonsense that we should wait 'until it collapses on its own' being being peddled by the likes of Karl Rove and others.

Following that kind of advice makes as much sense as waiting for a cholera epidemic to 'collapse on its own.'

Aside from the fiscal and structural reasons there are significant political benefits.

ObamaCare is an incredibly poor piece of legislation, and it is widely unpopular with good reason. Moving to defund it right now is going to resonate with the American public.

Action of this sort would also remind President Obama that it is Congress, and especially the House that holds the purse strings of government. That would re-establish the checks and balances between the three branches of government that have largely been lost since this president came to town. And might very well lead to President Obama being a lot more cooperative when it comes to investigating the raft of scandals the administration is embroiled in.

And finally it would put the president in the position of either allowing the defunding to go forward or vetoing a bill and shutting down government to defend a massively unpopular law.

In short there's no downside. Just the usual lack of courage and responsibility from certain members of the legislative class.

Make sure these boys hear from you NOW, via fax e-mail and telephone. And if you can, attend any town hall meeting or events that come up so they have a clear understanding of how you feel and what's at stake for them personally if they fail to do their sworn duty to the people that employ them.

A 12-year-old girl contracted parasitic meningitis, a rare and deadly disease caused by a brain-eating amoeba after swimming at a local water park.

It's an extremely rare disease caused by the amoeba Naegleria fowleri and is typically found in freshwater ponds or lakes or in soil. It enters the human body through the nose, where it then moves to the brain, where it feats on brain tissue. Parasitic meningitis is usually fatal. This is the first known case of the disease in years.

Kali Hardig was rushed to the hospital after spending the day swimming at Willow Springs Water Park in Arkansas, a lake with a natural, sandy bottom.

According to what her mother told the local Christian Post, she couldn't get Kali's fever down and she was in tremendous pain and vomiting. Doctors have put Kali into a medically induced coma in order to stabilize her condition.

The Arkansas Department of Health has closed down Willow Springs Water Park until further notice.

Over 250 Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners were freed when the Taliban launched a military-style assault on Pakistan's Central Prison in Dera Ismail Khan, including several of what Pakistani security referred to as 'high level prisoners', including six people scheduled for execution.

Central Prison is supposedly one of the most heavily guarded facilities in the country.

According to one of the surviving guards, the Taliban attack force blew up the main gate and then targeted the guards with RPG and mortar fire.Gunmen blew up the power lines to the prison and detonated bombs to breach the outer walls. At least 12 people were killed, including five policemen and four Shi'ite Muslim prisoners whose throats were slit by the Sunni Taliban attackers. The attack was extremely well planned...out of an estimated population of 5,000 prisoners, the Taliban knew exactly where of the prisoners they wanted to free were incarcerated.

My sources tell me this was almost certainly an inside job. Only about 70 of the 200 prison guards who were supposed to be on duty were present that night, and most of them simply ran away without returning fire. Some of the inmates were were also reportedly provided with cellphones by the guards, and were likely in touch with the Taliban.

Also, if mortars were used, inside information and good recon would have been necessary to get the range and coordinates. And the location of the prison, in the Pashtun areas that border Afghanistan ensured that the Taliban likely had local support for the attack as well.

There was a similar mass jailbreak in the northern town of Bannu about a year ago which was carried out with inside help from the prison guards.In fact, thus latest attack was reportedly led by Taliban commander Adnan Rashid, who was busted out of jail in the Bannu attack.

Iranian President-elect Hassan Rohani will nominate Mohammad Forouzandeh as head of the Supreme National Security Council, a position which would make him Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Iran's ISNA news agency said on Monday.

Forouzandeh is a former Revolutionary Guard, a current member of the Supreme National Security Council and head of a large and economically powerful state charitable foundation.

Here's what this really means....Iran is buying time. Every time they change 'chief nuclear negotiators' they get a free ride for at least another two months,longer if they drag things out even further before returning to 'negotiations'. Because, of course, the new negotiator needs time, lots of time to be conformed by the majlis(Iran's parliament) - after lots of debate, of course - to put his office in order, hire his staff, and take his time studying all of the past negotiations, minutes of meetings, reports...and then of course, there's the back and forth about a suitable time and place to schedule yet another pointless meeting with the gullible West.

How do I know this? Because it's the same movie we've seen before from the Ayatollahs. They may be able to string this one out six months if they're lucky.

1. Should the United States pass a law forbidding a Muslim from running for and being elected as President of the United States? Why?

Nope. The Constitution's agin' it.There's no test of faith to run for office.

2. What is your favorite joke to tell others?

Are you kidding? I can't repeat that here!

3. What do you see as the most dangerous thing the Obama administration has done while in office?

How long do you have? The START treaty, amnestia, out of control spending, ObamaCare, the president's embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood, the hollowing out of our military? I guess if I have to pick one, it is this president's unprecedented disregard for law and the Constitution.

4. What advice would you give the Republican National leadership, assuming they might actually listen?

Resign.Turn it over to at least someone with a fighting chance of intestinal fortitude and the ability to articulate it.

5. Should toilet paper be hanging forward or backward?

Forward. Toujours l'audace, l'audace.

6. Rock-N-Roll or Blues and why?Both.And why not?

7. Where do you see race relations and religious freedom headed in the next few years in the United States?

Race relations will continue to be poor as long as the Left sees grievance politics as a necessity to win elections and its activists see it as a vehicle for profit. Religious freedom like all other American freedoms is in for some rocky times, at least over the short haul.

Terresa's Questions:

1. What is the most important issue facing America?Overall, I'd say our lack of leadership.

2. If you could have anyone out there be President, who would you choose?

Sarah Palin.She'd make the changes that need to be made.

3. Who is your hero?

Hmmm...Joshua, with Rafael Eitan and George Washington as runners up. I have quite a list.

4. Who is the greatest enemy of America and why?

Ourselves. Because no one else can defeat us.

5. If you were fighting for your way of life, would you choose principle or security?

I'm uncertain of what you mean here. Without one, the other is useless.

7. Has communism/Marxism/progressivism infiltrated America and what would you do to stop it?

It infiltrated America a long time ago, as an express Soviet policy. It's why the Comintern was created. The only way to stop it is to fight it on the same battlegrounds it attacked us on - the culture, the courts, and the classroom.

Now, I suppose I.m going to have to tag a few others..starting with these two! I'll figure out the questions later...

This NBC report from Florida shows that illegal aliens and others not eligible to vote nevertheless filled out voter registration forms and voted in Florida's elections. There's no telling how widespread the problem is because the Obama Department of Justice consistently blocks the State of Florida and others from purging voter registration rolls of deceased persons, convicted felons, and others who were able to register thanks to legislation like President Clinton's so-called 'Motor-Voter' bill that automatically allows people to register to vote when they register a car at the Department of Motor vehicles or when they apply for public benefits.

Without voter ID requirements, it's a Democrat's dream come true when it comes to voter fraud.

The new Egyptian government continues to take a hard line with the Muslim Brotherhood, which might very well be the only way possible to settle the security situation in the country.

As Brotherhood inspired riots continue to erupt in Egyptian cities, the Army has responded in force.Over the weekend,security forces killed at least 83 Morsi/Brotherhood supporters in clashes in Cairo, while at least one policeman was reported killed by a gunshot that came from the crowd.

The violence erupted after millions took to the streets to show their support for Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi. The mass turnout followed a call from al-Sissi for rallies to give him a mandate to deal with violence and "potential terrorism", AKA the Brotherhood and the Islamists.

Meanwhile the arrests of Brotherhood and other Islamist leaders continues.The latest ones brought into custody are Abul-Ela Madi and Essam Soltan from the Brotherhood-allied Wasat Party, who faced arrest warrants for inciting violence and were found hiding in a house in a Cairo neighborhood located near the area where the Brotherhood had been holding its 'martyrdom actions'.

Former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi is still being held incommunicado by the Egyptian government as prosecutors prepare charges against him for corruption, conspiring with Hamas and the murder of soldiers in a prison break.

Now that Netanyahu has caved to U.S. pressure and agreed to release 104 Palestinians convicted in Israeli courts of murder and other terrorist offenses as a pre-condition, talks about talks are are apparently on between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day. This week's question:What Effect Do You Think Barack Obama's Presidency Has Had On Race Relations? Why?

The Razor:Race relations are far worse today than they were 5 years ago. In fact I would go so far as to say they are worse than they’ve been since the 1970’s but I lack the proof to back up the statement beyond my gut telling me. Obama has squandered an opportunity brought about by his skin color to heal the wound of racism on the American body politic, and instead has chosen to use race to further divide Americans for his own political gain in the pursuit of goals held by a small elite cadre of white liberals.

I’m not surprised. Although a product of an African and an American, Barack Obama has never been an African-American. Instead of being raised in the African-American experience from birth, he grew up in an unusual, sheltered environment abroad and living with his white grandmother in Hawaii. Instead of growing up in a black culture shared by many white Americans, he grew up in the white subculture of ultra-leftist academics, an elite which believes it understands blacks better than the blacks themselves. This culture sees African-Americans as a group that is completely devoid of responsibility for its condition and as a result incapable of governing itself, needing the intelligent white elite to do so. This elite also sees white people who do not belong to this subculture as evil, racists responsible for the legacy of slavery and for all the attendant problems of race in America. For example the administration has been silent on Black on black violence, except to use it to attack whites and their culture of “god and guns.”

This elitists viewpoint held by Obama and the white elite backing him is blind to the common experiences of whites and blacks today. African-Americans and Caucasians live together at levels unprecedented in our history. They share common goals such as decent schools for their kids and well-paying jobs for themselves. Their cultures intermix with white teenagers listening to black rap and cheering on black sports players, while African-Americans listen to country music stars and enjoy comic book hero movies with characters rooted in the white culture of the 1940s and 1950s. These commonalities are completely invisible to Obama and his backers; all they see is what they want to see: any black-white conflict that fits their pre-existing beliefs. When that conflict turns out to be a poor fit, like the Trayvon Martin murder case, they are forced to make up such racist idiocies as “white Hispanic” to squeeze the event into their belief system.

The irony is that the views held by Obama and his white elite backers are now more racist than the society they are trying to impose them on. Americans don’t want to be hyphenated and divided anymore: they want to be united in hope, and working together to build a better future. But the white elite rules, and America continues down the path towards ruin creating a mess that will take decades to clean up. What a wasted opportunity.

The Colossus of Rhodey: Recent polls have demonstrated that the public's views on race have deteriorated since Boss Obama has taken office. This should come as no surprise. Obama's -- and his wife Michelle's -- background includes myriad flirtations with radical concepts of the mixture of race, politics and the law. Make no mistake -- Obama's off-the-cuff comments regarding Henry Louis Gates Jr. and then Trayvon Martin weren't "mistakes" or "gaffes" at all. They were based on how Obama truly feels about race relations in the country. Even a cursory examination of his academic background (what one can actually find, that is) easily explains this. The problem with the most recent, Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman matter, is that the president and many of his acolytes (like Eric Holder) think the country is still sitting in the year 1960 or so. Such a belief is preposterous, of course, and we saw what this belief did to the whole Zimmerman trial. This does mean to say I and many others do not have any sympathy for what the president said regarding the perceptions of many African-Americans about such instances, and their dealing with law enforcement in general. But, again, for the most part, this is 1960 thinking.

In addition, calls by the president, the Attorney General, and others for an "honest discussion" about race in America are, in reality, farcical. Racial radicals do NOT want such conversations. "Honest" conversations on race to them mean "Sit there, white people, and listen to my grievances. And, accept them without question." If you want to see what occurs when a REAL "honest discussion" takes place, just look at the "progressives'" reaction to Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points" from this past week. We saw/heard everything from "he's blaming the victim" to the usual "RACIST!"

What racial radicals run up against with the majority -- especially the majority of my generation -- is that this majority was brought up with Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision: Content of one's character, and not skin color. Racial radicals have perverted this notion into "race should be taken into account" for any number of reasons. Right here, as you can see, such will result in a prodigious ideological scuffle. And I continue to believe firmly that King had it right, and that it is the only vision for America that will allow us to prosper culturally, racially, and ultimately politically.

The Glittering Eye:I think the state of racial relations in the U. S. has deteriorated over the last five years but, possibly, not for the same reasons as other Council members might.

I think that conditions have deteriorated for a number of reasons. President Obama's election raised hopes very high. These hopes, unfortunately, have not been fulfilled. The president has not paid any particularly great attention to conditions in the African American neighborhoods of major U. S. cities other than as a part of more general policies. And economic conditions in those neighborhoods have fared worse by and large than in other parts of the country as part of the general slowdown of the economy.

I don't think that the president has deliberately fomented racial tensions although that might have been the net effect. I think that what he has been doing is trying to explicate how many African Americans perceive events. To the extent that race is front and center in that point of view it's because that's how many African Americans, particularly those in the educated elite, tend to view things.

Whether that's an accurate perception is a different question entirely.

JoshuaPundit: Ecclesiastes wrote in that portion of the Jewish scriptures known as the Megillot that there's nothing new under the sun. I see race relations as yet another example. It appears worse than before because of two things - first, a logical result of certain trends and second, something we haven't seen in America on a national level ever before, the ascendancy of a political leader deliberately willing to help create and emphasize incidents that exacerbate the racial divide for political gain,something I examined in some detail recently.

In his famous speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged America to do one thing - to judge people on the content of their character rather then the color of their skin. Ironically, only a few years before his death policies were enacted by President Johnson to make sure that never happened.

The War on Poverty programs were expressly aimed at black Americans after a series of race riots that occurred that the Kerner Commission essentially excused by saying they were caused by 'poverty' and 'discrimination' The fact that various other groups of all races had suffered harsh discrimination and poverty when they came to America and managed to better the lives of themselves and their children in spite of it without either violent riots or massive government programs was deliberately ignored as a matter of political strategy.

As a result of those programs, the black family was destroyed as illegitimacy skyrocketed and test scores of black children in th epublic schools plummeted while programs originally designed as a social safety net were bloated out of all shape to create a culture of government dependency. It not only included welfare benefits that actually encouraged black women to marry the government rather than the fathers of their children, it encouraged the bigotry of low expectations with quotas for government jobs, contracts and college scholarships that were often doled out on the basis of skin color rather than merit.

As someone whose ancestors were slaves and whose people commemorate the harsh conditions of that slavery and our release from it every year, I recognize certain things in today's events when it comes to this topic.The Torah relates in Exodus how the Hebrews were at first overjoyed at the divine intercession that gave them their freedom and then took all of the blessings they received as something they had coming to them Just Because. They promptly started complaining about the manna (food), the accommodations, the lack of diversion, the leadership of Moses, the water supply and finally even the source of all the benefits they'd received,which led them to construct a Golden Calf to worship and ultimately proved a false idol that endangered their very existence and came close to destroying them.

This is an excellent example of what I call the 'slave mentality', and why G-d in His wisdom made sure to allow the Hebrews 40 years in the desert to grow out of it. Those of you who want to substitute a certain president for that Golden Calf who seemed so promising but ultimately only made things worse in today's version of these events have get no complaints from me.

While many blacks have likewise managed to shed this mentality, a number have not, with results that are quite evident. This is the essence of grievance politics; being dependent on Massa has simply been replaced with being dependent on Big Government. The crunch has come because even the United States of America is finally running out of other people's money to subsidize this, and any efforts to change course are attributed to white racism, although the terms 'Tea Party', 'conservatives' 'Republicans' and 'Corporate Greed' seem to work quite nicely as acceptable code words.

Wolf Howling:Historically, nothing has more poisoned our society than racism and the "racial divide." Today, half the equation - white racism - no longer prevails in society. But the "racial divide" is still deep. It is a divide carefully tended by the far left. For some of the blacks who have bought into it, there is money and power. There are, for example, the race baiters like Al Sharpton and Jessee Jackson. There are the tenured professors in ethnic studies programs at every university that teach nothing but racial grievance. Then there are the far left politicians of whatever color, from President Obama on down. They see that racial divide as not merely a route to political power, but a foundational element of it.

Blacks, starting with Goldwater's incredibly ill advised opposition to the Civil Rights Act, have been convinced that their interests lay with the left. And blacks have ever since proven to be a monolithic voting block like none ever before seen in our nation. Over 90% of every black vote since the mid-60's has gone for Democrats. If the left ever loses that block of votes, they will be in deep, deep electoral trouble.

So is it any surprise at all that President Obama has tried to poison the well of race relations at every turn? No administration in history has ever played the race card like the Obama administration. Want to prevent voter fraud - you're racist. Oppose Obama's spending - you're a neo-confederate "tea bagger." Oppose Obamacare - you might as well be standing next to Bull Connor in Selma setting the dogs loose on MLK.

When Obama had a chance to actually address the problems in the black community a few days ago, he told us that Trayvon Martin was Baracky Jr. He told us how bad it was, based on his personal experience, to be a black man in America and be 'profiled' because of his skin color. Lest there be any question that he was saying that racism - as opposed to rationality about black violence and criminality - was the cause, Obama expounded further. As to dysfunction in the black community - the violence, single mothers, cyclical poverty, substandard education - Obama told us that those things must be put in "historical context."

There is no question that, in the short run, Obama has worsened race relations in our nation. But I would submit that, in the end, the efforts of him and his administration is only adding straws to a proverbial camel's back. At some point, it will break - to the immense benefit of our nation and the black community in particular. It has to because all the imperatives that gave rise to the black Civil Rights movement have flipped.

In the 1960's, blacks were the subject of white racism. In 2013, racism has been wholly driven from mainstream society. Our society has revolutionized, and done so in only three generations, like no other in recorded history. To the extent racism exists today, it is on the margins. When you see a woman at one of race hustler Al Sharpton's rallies hold up a sign that says "Racism's stll alive. They Just Be Hiding It," that tells you all you need to know about the absence of racism in mainstream society.

Two, the moral high ground no longer rests with blacks. The most significant problems besetting black society - criminality, violence, breakdown of the family with three out of every four black children born to single mothers - those are problems internal to black society. They are not caused by white racism. Moreover, to the extent that the government contributes to the problems of the black community, it is ultimately because addressing the problems of black society honestly would break the monolithic voting block on which the left relies, and in the case of education, would mean taking on teachers unions that provide the single greatest source of funding for the Democrats. This is a travesty, as is the fact that Republicans, despite the urging of such luminaries as Thomas Sowell, have not made any concerted effort to point out these truths to the black community and seek their votes.

Lastly, since whites make up the majority of society, the success of the racial grievance industry ultimately rests on the existence of white guilt. But with racism no longer endemic to society, white guilt is fast fading. The race card is becoming ever less effective, and at some point, the constant claim that anything the left doesn't like is motivated by conservative's racism is not merely going to be ineffective, it is going to engender outright anger.

We are inexorably moving to the day when blacks stop their monolithic support of the far left. That will mean that they have joined American society and are no longer claiming to be perpetual victims of it. It will be the day the racial divide ends - and President Obama, with his administration's overuse of the race card, will have, wholly unintentionally, done his part to end it.

Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Thirteen ministers voted for the measure, seven against and two abstained. The vote approved the establishment of a committee to manage the phased process of prisoner releases, and approved the resumption of the talks, which are set to restart after a hiatus of almost three years in Washington on Tuesday.

The issue of releasing the prisoners, jailed since before the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, has divided Israelis, many of whom see the freeing of convicted murderers and terrorists as a price too high to pay for a return to the talks. Others regard it as a necessary evil, meeting a Palestinian demand to enable a resumption of negotiations.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that approving the releases was a deeply painful decision, but one that served the wider interests of the state. Underlining the anguish and divisions over the move, two ministers from Netanyahu’s own Likud party voted against it, and two more abstained. [...]

Sarsawi Tsalah Taha Samir was a Fatah commander who ordered a grenade tossed into a crowd of civilians in 1988 and threw Molotov cocktails at several buses, causing a number of injuries, some serious. He's serving 30 years.

Abu Mohammed Yassin is a member of the radical Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine(PFLP)who was convicted of stabbing two Israeli civilians, purchasing a weapon used to murder another civilian, and the attempted murder of a fourth Israeli civilian. He's serving 28 years.

Dagna Nofel Mahmoud, also from the PFLP planned and carried out the brutal murder of Sarah Sharon in 1993. He's serving a life term.

Sualha Bad Mahmed and Sualha Faza Husseini of Fatah are serving life terms for the stabbing murder of teenager Baruch Heizler, who was sitting next to them on an Egged bus in 199o. They then injured three teenage girls, Malka Betty, Shai Cohen and Avishag Cohen before they were able to be subdued and disarmed. Avishag, if memory serves me was all of ten years old.

Sabbag Ahmed Mahmed of Fatah is serving a life term for brutally torturing and murdering 3 Palestinians in 1990 he suspected of 'collaborating'...

Turkeman Yussef Mahmed,Abu Hanana Usama and Abdel Aziz Mahmed of Fatah are serving life terms for planning and carrying out the ambush of a husband and wife at a small convenience store in 1992. Moishe Biton was shot as he got out of his car and his wife, Mali Biton was murdered when she went to help her husband.

Damouni Saad Ahmed and Nashabat Ahmed of Hamas are serving life terms for the murder of Amnon Pomerantz, an IDF soldier. After disabling his jeep by throwing rocks at him, they let his vehicle on fire while he was still alive.

Ahmed Shahada is serving a life term for luring 13-year-old Oren Baharami to a hidden place, brutally sodomizing him and then inviting an accomplice to take a turn back in 1989. When the child tried to run away,Shahada beat him to death with an iron bar.

I should point out that I didn't cherry pick to find the worst offenders. Any of the killers on the list are there for similar reasons.

Israel has freed murderers before as a 'good will gesture' to the Palestinian Authority. It has never brought any 'goodwill' for the simple reason that a society that makes heroes out of people like this and makes their release a pre-condition for even talking about peace has no intention of making it.

Many of them are still relatively young and capable of killing again, and like almost all of the prisoners Israel has released previously, after their heroes' welcome in Ramallah, they'll get right back into the business of killing Jews.

And by caving in to the Palestinian demand for a pre-condition, it simply sets the stage for more blackmail. The Arab mindset sees what Netanyahu has done as an admission of weakness, and an opening for even more demands.

You also have to wonder at John Kerry's motivations. Is forcing Israel into doing this more important than taking a moral stand against people like this being freed? Certainly not if an actual peace is what's desired.

Friday, July 26, 2013

A bar in Reno, Nevada had a prominently displayed Mexican Flag flying on top of the Stars and Stripes (which is actually against federal law). Once news of it got around, an American veteran, Jim Brossard, responded by cutting the flags down what what looks like a K-bar, leaving the Mexican flag on the ground and taking Old Glory home with him, saying that he 'wanted someone to fight me for this flag. They're not gonna get it back."

The owner of the business, who is an Mexican immigrant but who became a citizen wouldn't talk for the cameras, but later told the TV news station he wasn't aware of the laws. Although you'd think simple common sense would tell anyone you fly your adopted country's flag on top.

So what do we make of this?

While the reaction was appropriate, there's one important step that was missing, one I would have taken as a matter of simple etiquette. I would have asked to speak to the owner, explained politely that what he was doing was both illegal and offensive to his adopted country and asked him to fix it.

I have a feeling I might have gotten an apology, our flag in its proper place and perhaps a couple of tacos and a cerveza. Because most legal immigrants appreciate what this country and that flag stands for.That's why they came here.

If, on the other hand I'd gotten a rude response or a sneering 'no speak English', it would have been time for the K-Bar. And I would have been happy and proud to follow Jim Brossard's lead.

As a matter of fact, I have a feeling Jim Brossard just might have included that step if he wasn't so frustrated about the Ruling Class's disregard for the wishes of thei rfellow citizens in promoting amnesty and failing to protect our borders.

My motto in life is that whenever possible, you always give people an out, a chance to do the right thing. More often than you'd think, they will.

The instruction came recently and included orders to halt any assistance the IDF might be granting EU representatives working in infrastructure projects in the territories.

The IDF cannot prevent EU officials from traveling in and out of Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, but it can prevent them from entering or leaving the Gaza Strip via Israel, as well as from promoting projects.

According to a defense establishment source, the decision was taken in a bid to send a clear message to the EU, stressing that any move to boycott Israeli actions beyond the green-line "turns the organization into a biased mediator in negotiations, and as such, it must accept the results."

Ya'alon decided the freeze in cooperation between Israel and the EU will include Area C as well as the crossing between Israel and Gaza.

A security source said: "We cannot prevent anyone from traveling freely; we cannot freeze their movement, but from now on they are tourists."

Area C is the part of Judea and Samaria that is directly under full Israeli sovereignty and is approximately 96% Jewish.

Speaking in Brussels, spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said "We have not received any official communication from the Israeli authorities. Our delegations on the spot are seeking urgent clarifications," Kocijancic added.

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Friday that due to the Israel's restrictions on EU activity in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, several European humanitarian aid staff had failed to receive permits to enter the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip.

What part of 'tourists' don't they understand? Maybe the Egyptians will let them into Hamasistan - not.

According to a defense establishment source, the Israeli decision was taken in a bid to send a clear message to the EU, stressing that any move to boycott Israeli actions beyond the green-line "turns the organization into a biased mediator in negotiations, and as such it must face the consequences."

While he never said the words 'Trayvon Martin', the speech, like the controversy Obama's Department of Justice played such a significant part in orchestrating, funding and organizing to make the Trayvon Martin shooting a national issue is part of deliberate campaign to rev up black turnout for 2014 by appealing to racial division.

Holder's chief target was the new Texas voting laws that require a photo ID and combat the voter fraud so dear to the heart of so many Democrats.In his speech, Holder vowed to impose “preclearance” procedures on the state of Texas in order to prevent it from making any changes in voting procedures without the express permission of the Department of Justice..in other words, President Obama and himself.

This,of course takes precedence over appointing a special prosecutor to look into Benghazi, the IRS scandal, Fast and Furious or any of the other scandals and cavalier disregard for law the Obama Administration has been implicated in.

Holder's attack on the new Texas law is pure politics. In the recent Supreme Court decision Shelby v. Holder, the SCOTUS re-affirmed protections against discrimination but simply ruled that race baiting ideologues like Holder could not pre-empt the judicial process on their say so without Congress rewriting the Voting Rights Act to reflect the realities of America in 2013 rather than 1965.

Since the Texas law is almost identical to one in Indiana that the Supreme Court has already ruled was constitutional, what's happening here is an attempt to 'punish' Texas by forcing them to devote time and resources to a case even Holder cynically knows has no merits whatsoever - except political ones, using race as a campaign issue. There's also the additional benefit that he may be able to drag things out and get injunctions that would stop the new voter ID laws from being implemented in the 2014 midterms.

Like the IRS, our Department of Justice is now merely a weapon to be used for political warfare rather than for the purpose it was originally created.

While Eric Holder's motives are clear, what's even worse is the help he's getting from some Republicans in attempting to subvert the law and play politics.

Pajamas Media has the story about paid Republican National Committee consultant Tom Hofeller spending RNC donations to develop race-based criteria to push Texas and other states back under the boot of the Departmewnt of Justice and into federal receivership:

The sources tell Tatler that nearly all of the members of the actual committee have been kept in the dark about this effort, and no mention is ever made in RNC fundraising efforts — for good reason, because GOP donors would be furious.

Hofeller, a long-time RNC consultant on redistricting, has devised ways to force several states back into federal receivership by amending the Voting Rights Act to grab states and force them to obtain Washington, D.C. approval. He is hopeful that Congressional Republicans will use his RNC-generated ideas to accomplish this goal.

So far, the Republicans in Congress have shown more sense than the Republicans paid by the RNC, and are cool to the idea of returning states to federal receivership.

According to congressional sources, Hofeller has also been misrepresenting the importance of the law struck down by the Supreme Court. Hofeller has told Hill sources the federal election oversight law is essential to elect Republicans, something most Republicans on the Hill no longer believe is true. Hofeller has spread this message while being paid by the RNC.

RNC donations are fairly low this year, and the reason why is quite evident when things like this surface.

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and we have the results for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

But first, we have some important business to take care of, we do. We have an important day coming up, the birthday of our very own Courtney Messerschmidt!!! Yes, our very own GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD hasa birthday coming up.

I hope she wears the famous lamb's head hat to our do. The actual day is Sunday, but any excuse for a party, no?

We'll start, I think with this luscious Mahogany Devil's Food Cake:

Some Veuve Cliquot, I think ...

Oh, and some Jägermeister, because I know she likes it.

And some special entertainment...Jeff Dunham and Achmed, the Dead Terrorist:

From the time I first ran into her site and recruited her for our group, I have always loved it that Courtney writes about serious subjects in her own unique way, treating English like a foreign language, (sorta like James Joyce meets Clausewitz on 'shrooms) but what stands out most about her for me is her sense of fun.I can always count on her to do something that makes me laugh. Who else would find a typeface that prints everything backwards and send me an e-mail written with it?

This is more important than it seems, because with what's going on nowadays, it's all too easy to forget sometimes that it's supposed to be fun.

It's truly a pleasure to have her as my friend and as part of the Council, and I'm very glad she's here.

It's a a fine piece that gives unique perspective of how the Obama Department of Justice aided and abetted by Obama intimate Al Sharpton ginned up protests and did nothing to stop the New Black Panther Party from putting a bounty on George Zimmerman's head - something that's supposed to be a felony. Here's a slice:

“We are tired of going to jail for nothing and others going home for something. Zimmerman should have been arrested that night … you cannot defend yourself against a pack of Skittles and iced tea. Don’t talk to us like we’re stupid! Don’t talk to us like we’re ignorant! We love our children like you love yours. Lock him up!”

… Trayvon represents a reckless disregard for our [black] lives that we’ve seen for too long, and we’ve come here tonight to tell you enough is enough….…. you thought it was hot,…. well, the heat has just arrived….

In March of 2012, Al Sharpton also appeared at a Sanford City Council meeting where he called out the City Government, council members, Mayor and City Manager:

…you are risking going down as Birmingham and Selma in the twenty first century… You are making the world know you as a place of racial intolerance…. you have compromised the reputation of your city for one man….

After George Zimmerman was interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News following the verdict, MSNBC denied that Sharpton had “rushed to judgement as alleged. They said in a statement:

“MSNBC would like to set the record straight following some misinformation presented by Fox News during the interview with George Zimmerman last night,” MSNBC wrote in a statement sent to POLITICO. “Reverend Al Sharpton never ‘rushed to judgment,’ as stated by Mr. Hannity. Reverend Sharpton repeatedly called for calm and for a more thorough investigation in the wake of the tragic events. Ultimately, the authorities agreed an arrest was warranted.”

The credibility impaired network has every reason to be worried that their already damaged reputation is about to take another major hit with Zimmerman’s defamation lawsuit in the works.

See you next week! Don't forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week's Watcher's Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in...don't you dare miss it. And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.....'cause we're cool like that!

Reporter Dan Joseph says he got 14 signatures on a petition after one hour. “That is a lot for the summer because there aren’t as many people on campus,” he says in the video. I imagine he could have done even better in California, New York or Massachusetts.

And no, he didn't represent what the petition was about either. He explained that to the students he asked to sign that it was demanding lawmakers legalize “fourth trimester” abortions to “ send a message to our lawmakers that women have the right to choose what to do with their bodies and babies” even “after their pregnancies.”.

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

While some of the major internet providers say they've successfully resisted government orders for passwords and encryption codes, a number of others simply refused to answer. And even the ones that claim they haven't could be lying simply to avoid a massive flood of people dropping their e-mail accounts and use of their search engines and web facilities.

The actual legal rationale is, as the article puts it, 'murky'. My first impulse is to say that this is a clear violation of th4e Fourth Amendment's provisions against unreasonable search and seizure, particularly when is comes to massive scooping up of data from people who are under no suspicion of doing anything to warrant it.

And while the surveillance is troublesome, we've has this kind of surveillance before during wartime.The difference now is that for the first time we have a president and an administration willing to use it as a weapon against their political opponents rather than just for national security purposes:

The Justice Department has argued in court proceedings before that it has broad legal authority to obtain passwords. In 2011, for instance, federal prosecutors sent a grand jury subpoena demanding the password that would unlock files encrypted with the TrueCrypt utility.

The Florida man who received the subpoena claimed the Fifth Amendment, which protects his right to avoid self-incrimination, allowed him to refuse the prosecutors' demand. In February 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed, saying that because prosecutors could bring a criminal prosecution against him based on the contents of the decrypted files, the man "could not be compelled to decrypt the drives."

In January 2012, a federal district judge in Colorado reached the opposite conclusion, ruling that a criminal defendant could be compelled under the All Writs Act to type in the password that would unlock a Toshiba Satellite laptop.

Both of those cases, however, deal with criminal proceedings when the password holder is the target of an investigation -- and don't address when a hashed password is stored on the servers of a company that's an innocent third party.

"If you can figure out someone's password, you have the ability to reuse the account," which raises significant privacy concerns, said Seth Schoen, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Since Zimmerman, his attorneys and his family have been subject to numerous death threats and his personal information including his home address was broadcast 'accidentally' by CNN, denying him the protection of a firearm essentially turned him into a sitting duck.

“Our IT guy says it’s a ‘denial of service’ or DoS attack. This is not the ordinary ‘hack’ attack that we’ve experienced many times in the past,” Rieck said. ”A DoS attack involves using significant resources to bombard a server to temporarily or permanently disrupt service.”

According to Rieck, the damage was so extensive, it cut off cell phone service and shut down the company hosting the association’s website.

“Our email communication services also went down. Leaders are located all over the state of Ohio, so we’ve had to set up a temporary alternate email list to stay in touch as we work through this issue,” Rieck said. “This attack was so overwhelming, it took down the entire company that hosts our website. Thousands of IP addresses have been caught up in the digital bloodshed. Shortly after all the company servers went down, their power went down. And our IT guy says his cell phone service vanished.”

A Denial of Service attack is usually an artificial call for content resulting in an overwhelming amount of server requests. It is designed to disable the targeted servers or cripple the servers so that content is delivered so slowly it makes the website unusable.

An attack that massive that could take down internet, power, AND cell service at the same time is is far beyond the resources of a hacker, because these are 3 separate networks.

A year ago, I would have said that anyone saying this was venturing into tin foil hat country, but after the IRS scandal, the NSA scandal and the AP scandal, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that this was done by the Obama Administration to send a message. I wouldn't be surprised top see more of this happening.

Zimmerman, by the way has already received a check from the association to buy a new firearm.

The child he's holding, Patrick is a 2 year old leukemia patient and the son of one of the men on his Secret Service detail. So what did Bush '41 do? He shaved his head in solidarity with the toddler.

Oh, and so did a lot of the other sides and members of the president's security detail, as they followed the president's example both in shaving their heads and in raising money for the child's treatment.

The Bushes lost their second child, Robin, to leukemia 60 years ago at the age of 4.

Very sweet, and indicative of what kind of men our presidents used to be.

With little argument, the House of Representatives approved measures Wednesday that would prevent the Obama administration from spending money on U.S. military operations in Syria without consulting Congress and would forbid funding U.S. military or paramilitary operations in Egypt.

The measures, part of the House’s $598 billion defense bill, were supposed to be contentious issues exposing bipartisan rifts between interventionists who want to give Obama a free hand in dealing with the civil war in Syria and unrest in Egypt and war-weary lawmakers concerned that U.S. troops will be dragged into more military actions.

But both amendments were approved on voice votes with only scant dissent.

On Syria, lawmakers passed an amendment by Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla., that would forbid any military action in Syria if it violates the War Powers Resolution – which requires the president to consult Congress before committing U.S. forces to battle or placing them in situations where hostilities are imminent.

This is a major slap in the face for President Obama , who was gearing up to repeat in Syria the same idiocy he put into action in Libya.

This amendment doesn't affect throwing our tax dollars away in the form of weapons for the president's al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood allies in Syria, but it would definitely setting up a no-fly zone or using U.S. ships to launch attacks on sites in Syria or using U.S. troops in Jordan in any way to help the rebels.

And conservative Republicans and Left-leaning progressive Dems are on the same side in this one.

“I believe without a shadow of a doubt this is one of the most insane policies that borders on madness – the United States to give funding, training and arms most likely to al Qaida in Syria doesn’t make any sense,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. “This is absolute madness.”

“Distinguishing between the good rebels and the bad rebels is impossible,” Welch said on the House floor. “The notion that we can have a micromanaged approach and pick the good guys, and arm them, and not have any reasonable . . . expectation that the arms will get into bad hands I think is naive.”

A similar amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky that would prohibit the U.S. from using money authorized in the defense bill to fund military operations in Egypt or to fund individuals, groups or organizations also passed by voice vote.

It's a pity the House didn't have it's act together to do this on Libya, but perhaps they finally learned something about this president when it comes to his foreign policy ineptness.

It's no secret that Brit musician Roger Waters has a thing about Jews and Israel. The former Pink Floyd bassist and composer has been known to go into red-faced tirades on the subject, and is an outspoken anti-Israel activist and Palestinian groupie. But on his latest tour, he appears to be making his bias a big part of his act.

Waters is now using giant inflatable pigs emblazoned with the Star of David, dollar signs, the hammer and sickle, and swastikas as stage props in his concerts.

The above picture is from the opening show of his European tour July 18th at the music festival in the city of Werchter,Belgium.

Some Israelis who attended the concert (and I can't imagine why any Jew would want to put money in Roger Water's pockets) were shocked.

“I came to the concert because I really like his music, without any connection to his political stance toward Israel,” says Alon Onfus Asif, an Israeli living in Belgium. “And I had a lot of fun, until I noticed the Star of David, on the inflatable pig. That was the only religious-national symbol which appeared among other symbols for fascism, dictatorships and oppression of people. Waters crossed the line and gave expression to an anti-Semitic message, beyond all his messages of anti-militancy.”

Apologists for the swine (the pig full of hot air or the artist, take your pick) are telling the media that the pig balloons have always been part of the concerts, and that Waters song "Run Like Hell" and the Wall movie attack racism, anti-semitism and religion-based intolerance.

The lyrics and the film are decades old, whereas Roger's current Jew hatred is a lot newer. He's always been against oppression, anti-religion and anti-authoritarianism, or so he says. So why no Muslim Star and Crescent on the balloon? The pig's old news too, but the prominent Jewish stars on it aren't. He's making a statement here, and he's entitled, but I'm also entitled to call him out on it.

'Anti-ZIonists' are anti-semites 99.9% of the time...and usually you don't have to dig too far.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

President Obama continued his hissy fit over the ouster of Islamist Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood by halting a pending sale of F-16s to Egypt:
Pentagon spokesman George Little said the United States values its relationship with the Egyptian military and characterized the delay of the F-16s as a cautionary measure.

“We do not believe it would be in the best interest of the United States to immediately change all of our assistance to Egypt,” Little told reporters Wednesday. But “given the current situation in Egypt, we do not believe it is appropriate to move forward at this time with the delivery of ­F-16s.”

The decision was announced shortly after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel held an hour-long conversation with Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, the Egyptian military chief, who this month deposed the country’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi, with the backing of a large segment of Egyptian society. A U.S. senior defense official said the move was not intended to be construed as punitive.

“This is not a way of punishing them,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to explain policy deliberations. “It gives us more time to consult with Congress, walk them through our strategy and explain our views to them.”

I can just imagine what that conversation between Hagel and al-Sissi was like:

"General, If you want the planes, you gotta put Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood back in power."

"Pound sand, Mr. Hagel. And tell your boss to do the same."

As for 'more time to consult with Congress', for anyone in the Obama Regime to say this verges on stand up comedy material. This is the same administration that took the unheard of step of overriding congressional holds on aid to Morsi's Egypt not once,but twice.

President Obama was just fine with a hard core Islamist Muslim Brotherhood regime hostile to Israel getting all the F-16s and other military hardware from the US they wanted. A non-Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian government? Not so much.

In another instance of this president's tantrum over the events in Egypt, he has apparently used U.S. influence to torpedo badly needed International Monetary Fund(IMF) loan for Egypt that was being pushed through with President Obama's assistance.

Needless to say, this pretty much marks the end of U.S. influence with Egypt - at least while Obama is president.

At this point, the new Egyptian government is getting funding from the Saudis and the other GCE countries, as it is considered a Sunni ally in the current Sunni-Shi'ite civil war, while Morsi and the Brotherhood were just a bit too cozy with the Mullahs of Iran.

With the Brotherhood continuing to cause civil unrest in Egypt (and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if President Obama was funding it covertly)the main task of the new government is to get the security situation under control, and they've made some definite progress there. There's enough aid money right now to carry things for awhile even without U.S. help, but the Egyptian government is going to have to take some serious steps to get its house in order just to feed its population.